Anonymity
Thoughts on Parashat Naso 2019
Click here to view as PDF
Following
instruction of the three verses of birkat kohanim, God instructed Moshe:
And
they [the kohanim]
shall set My name over Bnei Yisrael, and I myself shall bless them.
(Bemidbar 6:27)
The
Hakhamim explained that the call to “set His name” over the people
referred to speaking the “shem ha-mefurash” – the clandestine name of
God whose utterance was confined to the four walls of the Mishkan.[1]
Adhering to this tradition of secrecy, the Rabbis of the Talmud were careful in
their transmittance of God’s sacred names, teaching them only on occasion and
to their best and most trustworthy students.[2]
Concealment
of a name is most appropriate for Sefer Bemidbar. Bemidbar continues the
narrative begun in Sefer Shemot of Am Yisrael’s exit from Egypt
and march to the Land of Israel. These two books, however, are actually so
different from one another. As the title of Shemot suggests, the sefer
presents the “names” and stories of several individuals. First teaching about
the seventy people who descended into Egypt, Shemot then details the
birth and growth of the nation’s future leader Moshe. Sefer Bemidbar, in
contrast, is referred to by the Hakhamim as the “Humash of
Counting,” and more widely known as the “Book of Numbers.” Generally neglecting
the “names,” self-identities and the stories of individuals, Bemibar is
the story of a nation. It tells about the trials and travails of a vast
number of “nameless” people.
Forty
years ago, the social critic Christopher Lasch commented: “Success in our
society has to be ratified by publicity.” He wrote that “the tycoon who lives
in personal obscurity” and “the empire builder who controls the destinies of
nations from behind the scenes” are vanishing types.[3]
Akiko Busch more recently realized, “It has become routine to assume that the
rewards of life are public and that our lives can be measured by how we are
seen rather than what we do.” Our society’s sustained obsession with social
media and the ongoing legal debates regarding surveillance and cyber privacy
represent the “public” and “exposed” lives that we now all lead. Indeed, Busch
noted that the contemporary use of the word optics has less to do with
the science of light (as it once did), and refers instead to how visual
impressions of events and issues may be more important than the events and
issues themselves.[4]
Reflecting
upon the difference between exposure and “namelessness,” R. Joseph B.
Soloveitchik z”l wrote that Judaism demands anonymity from man. “He must
do his job and then vanish.” R. Soloveitchik reflected upon the members of the Anshei
Knesset HaGedolah (the Men of the Great Assembly), who established many
foundational laws and formulated our liturgy, the berakhot, and the
recitations of kiddush and havdalah. Who were they? What were
their personal stories? “We know next to nothing about them,” R. Soloveitchik
remarked, “They did not seek to perpetuate their own names.” Striving
diligently to bring the Jewish people together and formulate the Torah
she-be’al peh, when these men finished their tasks they disappeared.
The Anshei Knesset HaGedolah, like so many of the other individuals
who make up the chain of our tradition, “came, did their duty, and then
vanished.”[5]
Immediately
prior to mention of birkat kohanim, Parashat Naso details the potential
circumstances of individuals who may attempt to “stand out,” and establish a
“name” for themselves. First predicting the tragic demise of the sotah,
the wayward woman, the parashah then describes the ways of the nazir.
Although the nazir’s choice to stand apart from the others by abstaining
from acts of indulgence may seem positive, the Hakhamim emphasized the
Torah’s critique of that decision.[6]
The sotah and nazir, then, represent the opposite extremes of
name-seeking individuals, and neither is seen positively.
Taking
in the current state of our society at the end of his life, the late Oliver
Sacks observed:
Everything is
public now, potentially: one’s thoughts, one’s photos, one’s movements, one’s
purchases. There is no privacy and apparently little desire for it in a world
devoted to nonstop use of social media. Every minute, every second, has to be
spent with one’s device clutched in one’s hand.
He
lamented the fact that we are no longer able to concentrate and appreciate in
our own way, silently. We have given up “the amenities and achievements of
civilization,” Sacks wrote, forfeiting solitude and leisure and the sanction to
be oneself.[7]
Reflecting
the broader message of Sefer Bemidbar, Parashat Naso sets forth a
perspective on life and accomplishment so relevant to us today. Learning from
the mistakes of the sotah and nazir, we discover the detriments
of over-exposure. The concealment of God’s name, in contrast, reminds us of the
positive value of anonymity. Seeking genuine achievement calls for shielding
ourselves from the limelight of fame and searching instead for truths that are
determined on our own.
[1] See Commentary of Rashi to Bemidbar 6:27, s.v.
ve-samu and to Shemot 20:21, s.v. bekhol.
[2] Kiddushin 71a.
[3] Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism
(New York, NY, 1979), pg. 60.
[4] Akiko Busch, How to Disappear: Notes on
Invisibility in a Time of Transparency (New York, NY, 2019), pg. 4-7.
[5] R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Blessings and
Thanksgiving (New York, NY, 2019), pg. 141-3.
[6] See Commentary of Rashi to Bemidbar 6:11, s.v.
me-asher.
[7] Oliver Sacks, Everything in Its Place: First
Loves and Last Tales (New York, NY, 2019), pg. 254-5.